It is Anna Mallamo, journalist from the Gazzetta del Sud, who wins the first edition of the SuperBook, the prize from the Italian Cultural Institute in New York which compares the winners of the major Italian literary awards. The writer from Reggio Calabria established herself with the novel «Col cuore me la vedo io» over Wanda Marasco, second with «With my back to this world». The prize, worth 10,000 dollars, will be used to translate the book into English and promote it on the American market.
The gesture towards Marasco
Collecting the recognition from the hands of the director of the Institute, Claudio Pagliara, Mallamo wanted to share it with his colleague, so that the American public does not miss the opportunity to read his “extraordinary book”. Marasco, a Neapolitan born in 1953, did not hide her disappointment (“I was a bit upset”), but reciprocated: “Thanks Anna, I would have done the same if I had won.”
Reggio Calabria, 1981
The novel is set in Reggio Calabria in 1981 and follows a 16-year-old student who kidnaps a peer and holds him prisoner for eight days. In the background, a city marked by mafia wars. “How could we have a normal life amidst all this hatred?” asked the author, who explained that she had chosen an extreme story to overturn clichés about a land associated with kidnappings: “It has never been said of a woman who does something violent to a man.”
Dialect as a choice
Urged by Pagliara on the use of dialect, the two finalists vindicated the choice. For Mallamo, Calabrian remained outside the “consecrated dialects”, long considered “subaltern, miserable”; for Marasco «language is the body of history».
The jury and the ceremony
The winner was announced by maestro Daniele Rustioni, president of a highly qualified jury, made up of scholars and Italian scholars. The ceremony was also attended by the president of the Italian Publishers Association, Innocenzo Cipolletta, and the leaders of the Center for Books and Reading, the president Giuseppe Iannaccone and the director Luciano Lanna.
The seventh recognition and translations
The SuperBook is the seventh award for «In the dark I see it»: last Saturday, in Syracuse, the novel received the Vittorini prize for the first work, promoted by the Vittorini-Quasimodo cultural association. The book is already translated into Spanish, German and French; in Spain it will be released on September 22nd.